Chapter 03
Cara mia
Cecily
The door from the garage slams hard, and I rush out of the kitchen just in time to see Ethan passing by, his hand wrapped in a makeshift bandage.
“Ethan.”
He freezes halfway up the stairs. “What happened to your hand?”
“Nothing, Mom. I’m gonna shower,” he says, already climbing three more steps.
“You’re coming down right now and you’re going to show me your hand.” There’s no arguing with that tone, and I can’t remember the last time I’ve had to use it on him.
He steps back down, but doesn’t offer his hand. So I take it myself and unwrap the white cloth stained with dried blood.
His knuckles are busted.
“What happened?”
“Mom, seriously... it’s nothing. I just want to shower. It’s not a big deal.”
I hold his gaze. “You’ve always been honest with me, Ethan. Don’t shut me out now.”
He sighs, running a hand through his hair.
“We were playing at the court near Conrad’s, and that jerk from school showed up, the one who freaks out every time he loses?
He grabbed his phone and...” He looks away.
“He pulled up a screenshot of that article from December. Nothing new. People have shoved that in my face before or talked about that nonsense. But then he started talking shi—talking about you,” he corrects quickly.
“I don’t care when they talk about him, ‘cause they’re not lying.
But you? I’m not letting anyone talk crap about you. ”
His jaw sets into that stubborn line, protective in a way that ages him beyond his seventeen years.
“Come here.”
I pull him gently by the arm until we reach the small bathroom beside my office. Ethan sits on the bench, and I grab the first aid kit from under the sink.
“I know how hard this is,” I say as I start cleaning his knuckles. “And I’m not telling you to just not stand up for yourself. But I don’t want you getting into trouble, or giving exactly the attention a boy like that is trying to get. What happened to using your brain instead of your fists?”
Ethan leans his head back, hitting the wall, and closes his eyes. He doesn’t even flinch when I dab healing ointment onto the torn skin.
“He was asking for it for a long time. And everyone thinks the same. That’s why they took forever to pull us apart—they were all just enjoying the show.”
I notice a faint bruise on his left jaw, but nothing else. When I ask if he hurt himself anywhere else, he opens his eyes and tells me no, looking right at me. And I believe him. Teenage years really can be a nightmare.
Once I’m done caring for his hand, I tell him to go shower while I make him a sandwich.
Back in the kitchen, ingredients scattered across the counter, I catch myself wondering when our lives will feel peaceful again, the way they once did.
Ethan returns after I’ve already eaten more than half of my sandwich, and sits across from me at the kitchen island.
“The admission decision letters are going to start arriving soon,” I say, placing my plate in the sink and grabbing the cookie jar for him. “Are you nervous?”
He applied to NYU, Columbia, and Cornell. And years ago, Yale was on that list as well, as a way to include his father in his future, even knowing he’d never follow the same path into economics or business.
But when the time came... he didn’t. And I don’t blame him.
“Yes and no,” he says, grabbing a cookie. “I’ll be happy with any of them, but... I’d prefer NYU.”
My alma mater.
I reach out and touch his wrist gently, careful to avoid the injured hand. “With your academic record, any of them would be lucky to have you. You’re going to be an incredible architect in a few years.”
He smiles, and something in me loosens.
My boy is going to be okay. I know he is.
“I didn’t even know what to do or say,” I confess. “Except for those harmless shirt-pulling scuffles when he was small, Ethan has never been the type of boy who gets into fights.”
I look out the window of my bedroom, the view perfectly aligned with the new moon hanging over the backyard.
“Speaking from experience,” Alexander says, his voice calm and deep in that way that always centers me, “boys that age have little control over their tempers.”
“You’re telling me you were a hothead who went around picking fights?” I ask, smiling.
He chuckles. “Not exactly. But I didn’t run from a fight when it came to me either.”
I try to picture a younger version of the polished, composed man I know now—fists clenched, arguing in a schoolyard or on some street corner—and I can’t. It doesn’t fit. I tell him that, which makes him chuckle again before he exhales.
“There’s a fair amount you don’t know about me, Cecily,” he says, his tone turning serious. “Of course I don’t have the same mindset I had back then—that would be embarrassing at my age. But there are parts of me you haven’t seen yet.”
“Well... there are parts of me you don’t know either,” I say, finishing the thought for him.
He murmurs in agreement.
We talk for another ten minutes, until we finally say goodnight and hang up. But as I get ready for bed, his words won’t leave me. These other parts of him... I wonder if they’re parts I want to know... or if they’re pieces of a man completely different from the one he’s shown me so far.
Ethan
I drop onto the bench, turn the volume up, and lean back until my shoulders find the table.
The trees in front of me blur while I try to breathe deep enough, to keep everything inside me from blowing apart.
I had to leave the cafeteria before I messed up again.
The last thing I want is Mom being called in because I hit Tyler in front of everyone.
She tried to play it off that day, but I noticed the disappointment, the worry. She didn’t say it out loud, but I know she hates seeing me let someone like him crawl into my head.
Alan, my therapist, said the same thing as Mom last session: Tyler wants attention. He’s not telling me to run away from every fight, just to stop letting my first answer be my fists.
“Breathe. Think. Actions have consequences,” he said.
Thinking about Mom and Alicia is the only reason I didn’t go after him again today when he started his act in the cafeteria.
I don’t know how long I sit there staring at the trees, before I feel a light tap on my shoulder. I look up, sliding one side of my headphones off my ear.
Dalila, a girl from my class I’ve talked to a few times, is looking at me with a small smile on her face.
“Can I sit?” she asks.
Frowning, I nod. I came all the way to the back of the school, where almost no one ever hangs out, because I needed space. But I can’t exactly tell her to go find another bench.
“The guys were talking about what happened with Tyler,” she says in a sweet tone. “He’s such a jerk.”
I just nod.
“Can I see your hand?”
“It’s nothing, it’s alrea—”
I don’t even finish before she’s lifting my hand off my thigh. Her thumb slides over my knuckles, almost healed now, a week later.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I’m sorry about everything.”
I know she’s not just talking about the fight.
“Everything” means my family. All the bullshit everyone now thinks they have a right to talk about. And it’s all his fault.
I manage a small smile.
“I heard you applied to Columbia and NYU too. The letters should come any day now and I’m so anxious,” she says, keeping her hand in mine. “Maybe we’ll bump into each other at one of them?”
“Yeah... maybe.”
It comes out with a tiny smile. She strokes my hand once more with her thumb, then stands up.
“I’ll leave you to your music now. Just... don’t end up missing your next class.”
She leans in to kiss my cheek, but I turn at the wrong second, startled, and our lips bump. She stops for a beat, eyes going wide, then she lets out a small giggle.
“I’ll see you around, Ethan,” she says, her smile never fading.
“See you,” I mutter.
I touch my fingers to my lips. It’s not like it’s the first time a girl’s kissed me. I’ve kissed girls before, real kisses, not just little pecks. But I didn’t see that coming.
And, honestly? I never really noticed Dalila before. She always seemed too... preppy. Spoiled. Not my type.
But the way she talked to me just now... it didn’t feel fake. It felt sincere.
I shake my head hard. No. Not going there. I don’t have room for that right now.
I shove my headphones back on and hit play, A Beautiful Lie blasting through my ears and drowning out everything else.
Alexander
The moment the door opens, she throws her arms around my neck. I wrap her in a tight embrace, closing the door with my foot without letting go.
When she finally pulls back, I meet her deep olive-green eyes and say, in a teasing tone, “Hugging me like that, it’s hard to believe we spent an entire weekend together in Belgium less than a month ago.”
Aurélie rolls her eyes, turns her back on me, and heads toward the living room where there’s an open bottle of wine and two glasses already waiting.
“I know you missed me too, scemo[VII].” She hands me a glass, and I sit next to her on the couch.
It’s a Chateau Margaux 2015. Aurélie never misses a chance to pick something excellent. I take a sip. The fruit hits first: dark, clean, balanced. It’s good in a way that comes from time and care.
“You need to spend more time with me in Italy, sorella mia[VIII]. Your accent is starting to slip into something very... American,” I say, taking another sip.
As predicted, she stretches out her foot and kicks me. Only five years younger than me, but sometimes she acts like she’s ten.
“So, tell me,” she says, excitement bubbling through her voice. “How did the lunch go last week? You barely gave me any details on the phone.”
I told her about meeting Cecilia in the Hamptons the moment we met up the following week, back in September. And, like me, she’d been disappointed to hear Cecilia was married.
When I told her about that first moment—our hands touching, how speaking to Cecilia felt like talking to someone I’d known for years—Aurélie said without a doubt we were soulmates.